Hairy decisions

 Posted on 1/25/1998 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


(blocked) asks:
> Who decided that Garabaldi should be bald this season and that
> Sheridan would have a beard? In general are hair-style decisions
> for television characters made in the same way as wardrobe
> decisions? Did Delenn's makeup take longer before or after her
> transformation? On another matter, how do you collaborate with the
> book authors?

Jerry has been shaving his head, getting shorter each year, and
it worked for where his character is going, so I let it stay...Bruce
would love nothing more than to get rid of the beard (I suspect Melissa
doesn't like it also), but for me it's important to make the character
visually different, and to give him a more mature look, so Bruce
graciously indulges me.

Re: the novels...in the first few, the writers came up with
outlines and then manuscripts which they ran past me. I subsequently
decided that this didn't work because too many non-canonical things
were slipping in, and if I was reading the ms. late at night I'd miss
things, and generally they didn't feel like the show. The last few
from Dell, and the new ones from Del Rey, will proceed from outlines
assigned out from my office, based on my notes about the B5 universe.

jms